Episode 9: A Journey to the Edge of Hypertime
Episode Audio
Download: MP3 Audio (64MB)
Episode Notes and Links
Episode Notes
This is the first of several episodes of the SpaceTimeMind podcast wherein amateur chrononauts Richard Brown and Pete Mandik tackle topics in the physics and metaphysics of time. In this episode, one of the main ideas we kick around is whether any moments exist beyond the present moment. Additionally, we tackle the issue of whether it makes any more sense to say that time flows than it does to say that space moves. If time flows at some rate, must there exist a hypertime relative to which first-order time changes? And is the ensuing infinite regress an intolerable ontic horror? Finally, we discuss the relationship between the phenomenology of time experience and the metaphysics of time by exploring whether a computer simulation of a brain would notice being run backwards in time. WARNING: Under no circumstances should you attempt to listen to any part of this episode backwards.
(The music in the episode is by our band, Quiet Karate Reflex. The song in the intro is "SpaceTimeMind Theme Song" [link to music video] and in the middle break and outro is "Time Consciousness." More of Quiet Karate Reflex's music can be heard here: http://quietkaratereflex.bandcamp.com/.)
(The video chat between Richard and Pete that this episode's audio is drawn from is viewable on YouTube. See especially the first half.)
Links
- New Books in Philosophy podcast - http://newbooksinphilosophy.com/
- Ted Sider - "Smart's B-theory" course handout on the hypertime argument against presentism
- Dean Zimmerman -"Presentism and the Space-Time Manifold" The Oxford Handbook of Time
- Brit Brogaard - “Presentist Four-Dimensionalism.” The Monist 83 (2000), 341-356.
- Greg Egan - Permutation City excerpt “Rip, tie, cut toy man”
- Pete Mandik - "Slow Earth and the Slow-switching Slowdown Showdown"
- "A Time Travel Website" - http://timetravelphilosophy.net/
- Christopher Menzel - "Actualism" @Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Don A. Howard -"Einstein's Philosophy of Science" @Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy